


Thief in the Night

by coffee_mage



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Band of thieves, Gen, Kidfic of sorts, Living in close quarters, Peter was raised by space pirates with questionable hygiene, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:27:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_mage/pseuds/coffee_mage
Summary: A band of scoundrels and thieves, living in close quarters.  Things sometimes go missing.  Occasionally, they're found.Or: Five times the Guardians lost things and one time they found it all.  Set within 70 days of the end of the first movie.





	Thief in the Night

The Milano is a little bigger than it was before Nova Corps fixed it.Not a lot, but a little.Quill notices it in strange ways like when he gets up to use the toilet in the night and it’s six ladder rungs up to the main cabin, not five, then fourteen steps instead of thirteen to the toilet.The first couple times, he’d missed and messed up the bathroom, leading to an argument with Gamora, which was how Rocket found out.He never would have guessed the Milano was bigger.Sure, it’s meant to be a small, fast, agile fighting and smuggling vessel but the word ‘cramped’ comes to mind pretty quickly when you put five people on it.M-Ships were never intended for longterm communal living and it shows.

They’re living in each other’s pockets and Rocket is honestly a little bit afraid of what’s going to happen when they get to the point that Groot’s big enough to take up space of his own.Drax is territorial.Gamora is a private being.Quill has no sense of privacy.Rocket knows he has a slightly annoying tendency to leave bombs in public areas.Once they add in a fully grown or even half-grown Flora Colossus, they’re going to grow past the point of being able to handle each other on an M-Ship longterm.They don’t have the funds, however, to buy a bigger ship and Rocket’s pretty sure that Quill would lose his fucking mind.Drax may be the territorial one but Quill’s a packrat who seems to believe that if he lets a single physical item in his possession be changed, the universe will be sucked into a black hole and everyone will die.

Rocket’s found out about that while making a few improvements to the ship.It hasn’t ended well for anyone involved and often tensions between Rocket and Quill reach ridiculous highs.There’s been some ducking and covering and a reasonable, but still low for Rocket, amount of property damage.He’s done way more without endangering anyone before, though he’s trying to keep it under control.

Point is, though, it’s a small, cramped ship.They’re living right on top of each other and they haven’t even known each other an entire quarter yet.It’s no wonder that there are some… atmospheric issues.Namely that, as long as they have atmosphere, they can hear each other.

“Who has stolen my underpants?” Drax demands loudly.

Rocket closes his eyes and waits.It’s coming and he’s not disappointed.

“No one stole your underwear!” Quill shouts from the cockpit.“No one wants it.No one’s touched it.It’s right where you left it and it’ll stay there until we hit a planet and can wash it.”

“I had four more pairs of clean underpants!Have they been made some part of one of your courtship rituals?”

“What the hell?Why would anyone use underwear to try and pick up chicks?It’s usually the opposite, dude!”

“Gamora prefers it when you achieve at least reasonable hygiene.Your underpants supply is lacking.I can only assume you stole mine as all of yours are dirty.”

“I don’t care if Peter wears clean underpants!” Gamora calls.

Rocket snickers.Okay, this is going to be one of the funny fights.Unless it gets too violent.Then it won’t be funny anymore.It’ll just be fun.

“Yeah!Because we’re not dating!And for the record, I only wear them sometimes, so I don’t need as many pairs as you!”

“No one wants to know that!” Gamora shouts.

“That is disgusting!”

“What are you, an animal?Because I am and I wear underpants, Skid-Lord!” Rocket hollers.

“Shut up, Rocket!” Quill yells.“Drax, just keep better track of your stuff!Your underwear wouldn’t even fit me!”

“Gamora wouldn’t steal it!She is a woman and wears women’s underwear!”

“Drax, don’t talk about my underwear!”

“Rocket probably stole it!” Quill shouts.“He steals anything that’s not nailed down!”

Rocket hefts a nearby stun gun.Yeah.It’s time for things to get fun.

 

 

 

Rocket is sat in the middle of the table, carefully soldering a circuit in his newest detonator when Gamora starts digging through all the drawers in the galley.If he’s not careful, the circuit will overheat and the blasting cap will blow and they’ll all be in a world of hurt and a complete lack of oxygen.He sets down the soldering iron and looks over at her.“What are you looking for?”

“My throwing knives are all missing.I was hoping Drax had used them as paring knives again.”

“Well look for them more quiet-like, would you?I’m busy here and if you keep distracting me, I’ll blow a hole in the ship.”

Gamora slams the drawer shut and puts her hands on her hips angrily.“Well maybe you should think about not playing with bombs on a space ship!”

Rocket laughs, a harsh sound meant to mock and irritate.  "You'll be thanking me for this thing someday.  It'll save all our lives and you'll say 'Gosh, Rocket, I'm so glad you took time out of your busy schedule to build that detonator.'  And I'll say 'Yeah, now buy me a drink.'"

"I'm fairly certain that day is never coming.  You didn't melt down my knives for any part of that, did you?"  She's peering at his components suspiciously, trying to see.

"Why would I wreck a perfectly stupid weapon to make a better one?"  He pauses, considers it, then nods.  "Oh, oh, no, you're right, that does sound like me.  Except I didn't.  Because I'm not actually suicidal and I'm pretty sure you'd just use a bigger knife to murder me.  I'll bet Drax took them.  You know how he is about knives."  Rocket picks up the soldering iron and shrugs.  "He probably used them to sharpen _his_ knives or something."

"You don't know anything about blades, do you?"

Rocket holds up his blasting cap.  "See this?  This beats a stupid little knife every day of the week.  I don't need to know shit about blades because I'm actually smart."  He doesn't think about the fact that the glint of a blade sometimes makes the implants down his spine flare up with pain.  He doesn't.  

"I'm going to go ask Drax and Peter.  If the knives just appear on the galley counter, I swear I won't ask any more questions."

Rocket snorts, carefully placing the blasting cap back into its cavity.  "Yeah, cause the knife fairies are real and if you're a really good girl they'll float over from wherever the fuck it is fairies come from and leave you some knives."

Her footsteps are louder than usual as she stomps away.

 

 

  
There was a pile of grenades right outside the bathroom.  Emphasis on the _was_ because it's not there anymore.  He's looked a dozen times and they're just gone.  "Who stole my grenades?  They're no good to you assholes.  I'm still working on the launcher and it's got the primer.  You can't use them on their own!" Rocket shouts.

 

"They're in the box under the table!"  Quill's voice comes from the bathroom, probably the quietest it's been in weeks.  Things keep going missing and tensions are running high.

"Why the hell would you put them there?" Rocket demands, pounding on the bathroom door with both fists.  It echoes in the tiny bathroom.  It works well to torment a captive audience.

"Stop that!  Because you left bombs outside the bathroom and I tripped on them in the night!"

"Well watch where you're going.  No one wants to step in Lake Piss again!  Why can't you just leave my shit where you find it?"

"One, it's my shit because you built it out of my ship and two, why did you need to keep them right outside the bathroom?"

Rocket pounds on the door again.  "Tiny bladder!  I figured I'd have to piss before I finished them all!"

"Stop!  Rocket, it's literally like ten more steps.  You're a big raccoon, you can handle it!  Now go play with your bombs in the galley!"

Rocket gives the bathroom door a final, thudding kick, then heads for the galley.  "They're grenades, loser!" he tosses back over his shoulder.  He finds the box easily.  It contains three grenades.  He goes back to the bathroom and pounds the door as fast as he can, getting three limbs involved.

"What the hell, can't I take a shit?" Quill demands furiously.

"Eat some fibre and maybe you'll get better at it.  Where the flark are the rest of my frakking grenades?" 

"They're all there.  I picked them all up and put them in the box so no one else would trip on them!"

"I made at least twenty grenades.  There are three in that box.  Where are the rest of my grenades?"  He doesn't stop pounding on the door and his whiskers twitch as he senses a presence behind him.  He doesn't bother to turn.

"Are you telling me you lost seventeen grenades on my ship?" Quill demands, the door opening as he hauls his pants up.  It looks like it's a no underwear day and Rocket cringes.  Quill has no body shame and it would be nice if he sprouted some.  He kicks Quill in the shin.

"At least seventeen!  There might have been twenty five to start!"

"We pull our pants up _before we leave the bathroom,_ " Gamora says from behind Rocket.  "And what do you mean you're missing twenty grenades?"

"I mean I left them in a nice neat pile right here and Captain Commando fucking lost them!"

"It's Star Lord and I didn't lose them.  You probably miscounted!"

"Okay, Skid Mark, and yeah, you did.  I know the difference between three and twenty!  It's a big difference!  Now where'd you put them?"

"I put them in the box.  Did you look in the box?"

"That's where I found three!  Three is less than twenty!  Didn't anyone ever teach you how to fucking count?"

Gamora sighs and Rocket tenses.  He doesn't like it when people are behind him, least of all highly trained assassins.  "An abnormally high number of things have gone missing lately.  We all need to be more careful with our things."

"I am careful!" Rocket snaps, whirling around.  It's at times like this, craning his neck to look up at two people who tower over him that he misses Groot's full size the most.  He'd had a better vantage point from Groot's shoulder than he has now.

"As am I," Gamora said, diplomatically.  "Perhaps the box was knocked over and some of the grenades are under something nearby."

"I'm short.  I would have seen it!"  Rocket pauses.  "Unless we got orloni."

"The ship was just rebuilt.  We don't have orloni," Gamora protests.

"Bet we do.  Those fuckers'll happily steal whatever they can get their little jaws on."

"Are you saying you think we have armed space-rats on the ship?" Quill asks in horror.

"Yeah, and I'm gonna build me a trap.  Kill the little assholes!"  Rocket can already see the blueprints in his mind.  It's gonna be great.

"No," Gamora says, firmly.  "You won't.  What if Groot gets caught in it?"

Rocket's heart pounds in his chest.  He's not used to thinking about the safety of anyone smaller than he is.  Losing Groot again... he just can't do it.  "Fine.  Live trap?"

"That is... much more suitable," Gamora agrees.

 

 

Rocket is rebuilding grenade number twenty when it happens.  He never expected it, never thought it could happen, not in a closed ecosystem like the Milano, but it happens and he's completely unprepared for it.  

"Has anyone seen Groot?" Quill calls, for the third time in ten minutes.  At the chorus of negatives, everything seems to screech to a halt.  There's a humming in Rocket's ears.  It's like cold water is dripping down his spine, chilling each of the spikes sticking out through his skin in turn.  

Rocket hasn't seen Groot in at least two hours.  Not since Groot had tried to help him at the wrong moment and he'd snapped at him.  He'd run off, towards the cockpit and Rocket had assumed he was hanging out with Gamora.  But Gamora hasn't seen him.  It's only twenty Rocket-sized steps, perhaps a hundred and fifty of Groot's to the cockpit from where Rocket is working.  It's basically a straight line.  Only, Groot never made it.

Rocket sets down the grenade pieces and stands up.  He looks around, half expecting to see Groot peeking out from behind something.  He's not there and there's no giggle to indicate that he's hiding.  He's not crying either.  Rocket would be able to hear it.  Rocket can hear better than most sapient beings.  He can't hear Groot and the absence makes his stomach clench.

"Everyone stop what you're doing and get looking!" he shouts.  Groot doesn't disappear like this.  He hates being left behind even for a moment, doesn't want to be left alone.  If he's missing, something's happened.  

There's a frantic twenty minutes where everyone's searching, shouting Groot's name over and over at the tops of their lungs, the name a cacaphony that washes over Rocket, drowning out the pounding of his heart in his ears.  He's watched Groot die once and the idea that he might be hurt or dying somewhere they haven't found yet is making his breath come in harsh gasps.  

"All right, everyone shut up!" Rocket shouts.  "Go into the cockpit and sit perfectly still!"

"How's that going to find him?" Quill demands.  

"Because I hear better than any of you morons.  So no one move.  Statues.  I hear any of you move and I'll cut that part of you off with one of Drax's knives!"

He'll always be a little paranoid that they heard him panicking and that was what made them do as they were told, not the threat, but they file into the cockpit.  He starts there, listening between the slow, quiet breathing of his teammates and tipping his head from one side to the other as he moves, one silent step at a time.  The engines are overwhelming.  "Shut off everything!" he shouts.  "Take life support out, even.  Turn off the damn vents!"

"Life support?" Quill echoes as the engines whir to a stop.  "We kind of need that!"

"There's enough oxygen in here for a couple hours and I need maybe ten minutes.  Shut it down!"

"Just do it," Gamora says quietly and there's a click.

The silence on the ship is stifling and Rocket has never been more aware of the vacuum outside the ship.  The loudest sound as he moves is his own cybernetics and there's nothing he can do about them.  He hears a scratching in a vent and nods to himself.  They have orloni all right.  He'll catch them, though.  He tips his head to the other side and freezes.  There it is.  A tiny, almost whining sound.  He closes his eyes and strains to hear, turning his head slowly to isolate the location.  He walks in a circle, then he catches it again and follows it.  As he heads towards the hold, it resolves into something he can make sense of.  It's Groot.  He can hear Groot crying and he's never felt more relief in his life.  

He drops to all fours and runs full out, but Groot isn't sitting in the middle of the hold looking sad and abandoned.  He's nowhere to be seen.  Rocket turns his head and turns his head again and then realizes.  "Bring me a screwdriver!" he shouts at the top of his lungs.  He kneels next to a panel right by one of the beds.

"Did you find him?" Gamora demands, footsteps like thunder against the silence of the ship.

He holds up his hand and she drops the screwdriver into it.  A few rapid-fire jolts twist bolts out and the panel falls away, revealing the live trap he'd set for the orloni.  There's an orloni in there, dead.  The vines around its neck tell him who did it and sitting in the opposite corner of the tiny cell is Groot.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Rocket demands.  "How did you even get into the wall?"

"I am Groot?" he says, sniffling sadly.  He was afraid and he didn't know the hole took him into the wall.  He holds up the foil from the candy Rocket had baited the trap with.  "I am Groot."  It was delicious after he stole it from the orloni.

Rocket pulls the trap open and drags Groot out, hugging him instinctively.  "You can't _do_ that to me!  You trying to kill me?  Shit, I thought you accidentally spaced yourself or something!"

Groot pats his shoulder.  "I am Groot."  He's sorry.  He didn't mean to scare Rocket.  He didn't mean to get lost.

Rocket sets him down.  "Yeah, well don't do it again!"  Behind him, Quill clears his throat and Rocket turns.  "What are you looking at?  Turn the life support back on before we all die!"

 

 

Rocket is sound asleep, curled up around Groot's pot when a shout wakes him up and he leaps to his feet, twisting and turning in every direction.  He doesn't see anyone except Groot, who has apparently left his pot and gone to sit by the wall, but that doesn't mean no one's there.  He thinks it was Quill, but he's not sure.  Maybe Quill just tripped over his own feet on his way to the toilet?

"Everyone get your asses into the galley or I will soak your beds down and turn down the heat for the rest of the month!" Quill's voice screams.  He's almost incomprehensible, he's so loud and angry and Rocket rubs at his face and scratches his ass. 

"Go back to bed," Drax calls tiredly.

"Nope.  Get in here.  We're having a fucking trial and no one's sleeping until you give them back!"

"We'll deal with it in the morning," Gamora tries.

"Now!" 

Rocket decides that fighting with him isn't going to get anywhere and, in the hope of getting back to sleep, he picks up Groot and carries him out to the galley.  He doesn't bother getting dressed, deciding that his underpants cover more than what Quill wears half the time. He's still the last one to make it into the galley, everyone bleary-eyed and cranky.  "What did you lose?" 

Quill holds up his stupid music player for display  It looks fine to Rocket until he sees the headphones.  The ear parts are black, not orange and hard plastic not soft.  "Someone swapped out your ear speakers?" he asks, squinting at them.

"Someone took the foam thingies off them!  And no one's sleeping until I get them back.  Not me, not you, not anyone.  Now who took them?"

"Peter, why would anyone steal them?" Gamora asks.  "They're useless for anything except your headphones."

"I don't care why.  I know they were there when I went to sleep.  I had my headphones on.  I wake up and the foam thingies are gone!"

"Perhaps they were knocked off while you were sleeping.  Did you search your bedding?" Drax asks, yawning.

"Of course I looked in my bed!  I'm not an idiot!"

Rocket snorts, because no, he probably didn't.  He's just dragged them out of bed for no actual reason at all.  "And yet we're sitting around the damn table in the middle of a down cycle because you're a little baby who gets all freaked out when your stuff breaks."

"I'm not a baby!" Quill snaps, lunging in his general direction.

"Uh huh."

"Quill is clearly an adult," Drax says.  

"Yeah, see, Drax is on my side."

"No.  I'm going back to bed.  I am finished with this absurdity."  Drax starts back towards the cargo hold.

"Oh no you're not!" Quill shouts at his retreating back, flailing his arms irritably.  "Get back here or I'll make you."

Rocket laughs out loud, throwing his head back and cackling.  "Please, please make him.  It'll make this whole thing worse it.  It'll be hilarious!"  The idea of Quill trying to physically drag Drax back to the galley is great and if Quill actually does it, it's going to make his whole life.

"You think I can't make him?"

Rocket shrugs.  "No, not really.  But go ahead, try.  I'll set up a camera and get the slow motion replay in the morning.  I'm going back to bed.  Groot?"

"I am Groot," Groot agrees tiredly, burrowing his face into Rocket's ear.  Rocket turns.  If Drax isn't sticking around--and he clearly has no intention of doing so--then Rocket sure as hell isn't staying.  He could use another couple hours' shut eye.

"Fine.  You can go, but only because you're taking care of Groot.  Gamora, help me get to the bottom of this!"

"No," she says.  "I won't.  We're all going back to bed.  We'll either find your... thingies in the morning or we'll replace them at the next planet.  There's absolutely no reason to be awake right now, not over something so trivial."

Rocket listens to them argue--it's like they think they're subtle about the fact that one day they're going to fuck--and carefully puts Groot into his pot.  "You'll sleep better in here," he says quietly.  "You need the nutrients in the dirt or you'll stop growing.  Don't want that, huh?"

"I am Groot," he says.  He doesn't care if he grows.

"Sure you do.  We'll be able to have a lot more fun when you aren't a baby anymore."

"I am Groot."  He kind of has fun being a baby.

"It'll get old.  I promise."  It would.  Everyone thought Groot was cute and sure, maybe it was a novelty to him.  Rocket had been 'cute' to others his whole life.  Soon Groot would get bored of it and he'd want to grow.

 

 

The Milano seems smaller some days than others.  It's a particularly small day.  It feels tiny, stifling.  It's like Rocket can't even get a deep breath without smelling what someone else ate for dinner two nights ago.  They really need to work on Quill's oral hygiene.  And Drax needs to either put on a shirt or stop turning the heat up.

"Some of us can't just strip down when it gets too hot!" Rocket says, turning down the temperature on the environmental controls.  "Stop cranking it up!"

"I own no shirts.  I will not be adding any to my belongings as I have no intention of wearing them.  I also have not adjusted the temperature."

Quill leans over to the control panel, taps something over Rocket's shoulder and frowns.  "No one's touched them."

"Someone's touching them.  It's hot in here!"

"Yeah, I know, but no one touched them.  Rocket, I think the environmental controls might be fucked?"  Quill pokes at something a few times, irritably, then points.  "Yeah, there's back pressure in the primary oxygenation fans."

"Damn it.  Orloni," Rocket snarls.  Fucking things love nesting in isolated places.  Rocket's spent enough time in cargo holds to know.  It's not always easy for him to get passage on a passenger vessel when he's not actually recognized as sapient by pretty much anyone who doesn't want to put him in prison.

"They can't have built a nest that quickly, can they?" Quill asks.

"They can wreck a ship pretty fast.  And our vents are too damn small for me.  I'm going to have to take them apart!"

Quill looks horrified.  "I've never tested the backup system."

"Nova Corps will have made sure it's fine.  Switch to backups.  Drax, I'm going to need your muscle."  Rocket heads for the vents.  He hates ripping vents apart.  It takes reach he doesn't have and if there's anything he hates more than being too small for something, it's needing to teach an idiot how to do as they're told.  Overall, it sucks and he hates it.  It's a small price to pay for usable air.  He likes breathing, so he turns into a furry ball of activity, yelling at Drax the whole time.

He doesn't even get the first section opened before the backups make the ship feel better than it has in days.  He'd been so sure that Drax was screwing around with the controls that it hadn't occurred to him to check the damn system and it's a kick in the ass that Quill figured it out first.  It's enough to make him work harder, move faster.  He's going to fix the vents fast or he's going to end up stabbing someone.

They don't find anything in the first section, nor the second.  They find it in the third section.  The duct is mostly clogged when Rocket shines a light in and he sniffs.  It doesn't smell like orloni, but that doesn't mean anything.  There's definitely a nest of some kind.  

Drax tips the section onto the floor and the nest moves freely, which is puzzling.  Orloni are space-adapted.  They stick their nests in place with a secretion from their saliva to prevent shifting in atmospheric re-entry.  Rocket frowns and picks at the debris.  

"Wait.  Aren't these your underwear?" he demands, grabbing a pair of shorts by the edge.

Drax blinks.  "Yes, those are some of the missing underpants."  He sets down the duct and picks them up.  A couple of small knives topple out of the folds of the fabric.  "And Gamora's knives."

Rocket frowns, poking at the pile some more.  Something lumpy... Yes.  "My grenades!"  He starts shaking things out.  "Well, some of them, anyway.  This ain't an orloni nest..."

"Indeed, it is not."

"Everyone get in here!  I think we got some kinda stowaway situation!" Rocket calls.  There's a thunder of feet as the others come, Groot riding on the top of Gamora's head, holding some of her hair like reins.

"My foam thingies!"  Quill spots one of them immediately, snatching it up out of the nest.  

"I am Groot!" Groot shouts delightedly, sliding down Gamora's body to hit the floor with both feet and come over running.  He's overjoyed to see the nest, thrilled in a way Rocket hasn't seen in awhile.

"No, a stowaway situation isn't something to get excited about," Rocket scolds.  "I don't know what species, even.  It's gotta be tiny."

"Someone about half your size at the largest, I think?" Gamora says, peering from the vent to the nest.  She nudges a pile of sugary treats with her toe.

"Yeah.  Don't know many species that small and I'd know about them."  Rocket twitches his nose, trying to find any kind of scent clue.  It's weird.  It all smells mostly like outdoors, the way Groot does.  But there's no way there's another Flora Colossus on the Milano.  They'd have realized and Groot definitely would have told him.

"I can't think of any species that would nest like this..."  Quill shakes his head.  "And I've stolen from pretty well every single species in the spacefaring galaxy.  Some that aren't, too."

"Yeah, yeah, the Eclector's propensity for poaching artifacts and primitives ain't something to be bragging about," Rocket snaps.  "Udonta's insane."

"Who are you calling primitive?" Quill demands.

They're very lucky that an orloni, unaware that part of its ship-wide transport system is pulled out of the ceiling, comes racing out the end of the open vent at that moment.  Its descent is a shocking enough arc that everyone follows it with their eyes.  This is why they see Groot bash it on the head with one of the grenades, then stab the damn thing in the neck, using one of Gamora's throwing knives as a sword.

Rocket stares.  Groot is a fricking infant and he's killing goddamn Orloni bigger than he is like some kind of action star.  There's a familiarity to the movements that makes Rocket's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Groot, where'd you learn to do that?"

"I am Groot!"  It's his sword and he's been throwing the grenades at the orloni for days.  "I am Groot!"  They're shitty grenades though since they don't actually explode.  "I am Groot."  Rocket might want to work on that.

"What the hell?  Are you telling me you took this stuff?"

"Wait what?  Groot's been taking our stuff?"

"I am Groot."  Groot nods and Rocket groans.  He's having fun.

"It's not fun to steal from people you live with, you moron."

"I am Groot!"  Obviously it is.

"No, it isn't.  I don't care if you enjoy stealing, you don't get to steal from these losers.  Or me!  If you'd knocked one of those grenades into a fan we'd be dead."

"I am Groot."  He was careful, he promises, the grenades are just the perfect roundness for scaring the fucking orloni.

"Oh my god.  You can't just throw grenades at orloni.  And watch your mouth."

"Rocket, what's going on?"

"Groot's our damn sneak thief.  He's been stealing our shit and hoarding it in the vents."

"I am Groot!"  

"Oh, I'm _sorry_.  Not hoarding.   _Hiding._ "

"I am Groot."  Groot bunches up the underwear and holds an armful up to his face.  They're so soft.  "I am Groot."  Peter's ear-things make great pillows for napping in the soft underwear.

"Get your nose out of Drax's dick holsters!"  Rocket grabs them and pulls them away.  "That's disgusting!"

"I am Groot."  He loves them, though.  Can't he keep them?

"No!  And stay out of the vents!  Do you want to get sucked into an exhaust fan?  You're not allowed to space yourself!"  Rocket scoops Groot up and brings him to eye level.  "We need to have a conversation about this.  You need to learn some basic safety.  The rest of you, put the vents back together!  Groot, you don't steal from your friends!"    He'll teach Groot.  He'll make sure he doesn't kill himself.  And he'll teach him not to steal.

"I am Groot!"  But Rocket loves to steal.  Rocket steals everything.

"Except stuff that's theirs!"

"I am Groot."

"I'm not stealing any part of the damn ship.  I'm improving it!"  Rocket heads back towards the galley.

"I am Groot!"  No, Rocket's not.  He's a thief.

"No stealing!  Ugh!"

"I am Groot."  But what if Groot wants it more?

Rocket suddenly understands Rhomann Dey on a deeply personal level.

**Author's Note:**

> Not my best work, but something I wanted to share anyway. *shrugs*


End file.
